Mad World

[Steve]

I recently posted a thread concerning a tree that was grafted to produce 40 different kinds of fruit. I did it, not only because I thought it was amaz-balls that someone could take the art of grafting to such incredible heights, but because I wondered what a grove of such trees might be able to produce.

We already have genetically modified components making their way to grocery stores, supper tables. What's next? It seems every time I turn around there is some new piece of technology that spins my head around and takes me far from the 1960's of my youth. I remember reading Jules Verne with wonder and realizing that many of his literary imaginations have come true. Or watching Star Trek and thinking that it would be so handy to have a communicator that I could just flip open, voice activate, and talk with whoever I needed. Hell, when you think about it, all Kirk had was a bulky flip phone. Our phones now are sort of a combination of Star Trek's main viewer, its communicator, it's universal translator, and a sort of tri-corder that can provide multiple tasks and yield all manner of information.

Yet another video about a new product brought me to ask "What kind of world are we headed into?".




Do you know where you're going to? Do you like the things that life is showing you? Where are you going to? Do you know?

What do you think? What do you think our future looks like? Interstellar? Blade Runner? Star Trek? Terminator? The Fifth Element? 2001: A Space Odyssey (years out of date)? Mission to Mars?
(What did you think of the Mars speaker, btw?

[East]

I think we are going to be Lizard Nation...maybe we already are. :eek:

I honestly don't really trust new technology very much....

I thought it was funny when the internet began how many people expected that everyone did everything for free ...like it was a giant favor and would cost you nothing.,.....LOL...and I would explain that YOU are the product....and no one was sitting around trying to figure out how to give the world free technology...

Among other things...they are figuring out how to sell you shit..nothing new about that...but this is a different animal....

In my mind...every single new tech advance is designed to contribute to an increasingly advanced and accurate consumer profile and database...and the obvious pitfalls ahead are ignored...

All of that data in one place can bring the world to it's knees in the wrong hands....and anyone who thinks it won't be in the wrong hands eventually is a fool....weapon systems...satellites...finances...communication...drones....profiles targeting any group they want to target...a recipe for disaster....and we see it all the time on a smaller scale....

Oh yeah...new technology? Love it LOL..why not..I am old :biggrin:

[matty7]

the scary one for me is the advert poster that they have in bus shelters/ shopping centres etc are going to have hidden video cameras with facial scanning to see if you smile or frown at the add so they can adjust it to make it sell better - were all gonna be facially scanned...how creepy is that

[TigerLover]

Oh I am so psyched for the future.
3d printing, robots and my favourite. cybernetics.

"Oh Mr Simmons you're finally awake, I've got great news. Both your arms were horribly mangled in a car crash. Now you get to have cyborg arms."

"Woohooo" *raises stumps*


As for what kind of future we have. Well that all depends on how well we adapt.
I mean this speaker is amazing but it must use up a lot more power than a regular speaker.

[MikeW]

Well, Wednesday I spent the afternoon with a 36yo friend of mine who has one of these:




Totally way cooler than that flying saucer thingy. (Although I do admit the anti-grav is a great hook.)

Where are we going, what are we becoming?!!

DUH THE BORG ...

[COLOR="DarkOrchid"][SIZE="6"]AND WE'RE ALL GOING TO BE SO INCREDIBLY STIMULATED,
ENTERTAINED, WELL INFORMED, SEXY, HEALTHY AND HAPPY ALL THE TIME,
WE'LL ALL TURN INTO PERFECT REPRESENTATIONS
OF GENUINE HUMAN BEINGS!!

AKA FAKES[/SIZE][/COLOR]

[Chase]

I'm in engineering, it's my job to further technology.
Designing higher tech gizmos puts bread on the table and keeps me off the streets working the corner; scaring the shit out of East is just a bonus.
We already doomed ourselves with the A bomb 70 years ago. Where we go now is just for shits n giggles.
It'll go like this: George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four --> Terminator --> Mission to Mars ---> Cowboy Bebop --> Star Trek --> Star Wars --> Iain M Banks's Culture Series
We are already living in Nineteen Eighty-Four, in fact, we're already past the Orwellian marker. Our government has spying technology the state of Oceania couldn't even dream of.
When we make it to Terminator (assuming we haven't been taken out by nuclear bombs by then), we will either learn how to coexist with AI, or be doomed. If we past this test, then we might make it to Mars.
Note - we might seriously make it to Mars before "the singularity" (look it up). I say it'll come later because without any new breakthroughs, government incompetence and insufficient funding will hinder this.
If you don't know what Cowboy Bebop is (which most of you probably don't), then basically it's just us humans living throughout the solar system with the various planets and moons "terraformed" (made livable and earth-like).
If we still haven't gone extinct by then, then we might, just might, prove the survival of our species. The Star Trek age, however, will only be a technological breaking point, it is impossible - and I do mean impossible - to attain the level of civility that the humans of the Confederation have achieved. That whole Star Trek socialism thing where "money does not exist, we work to better ourselves" - bullshit and you know it. Never gonna happen. Getting "beamed up" is also never going to happen and even if it did all it's really doing is just killing you and making a perfect clone of you. Warp - probably not, I'd imagine we will one day reach other planets (if we haven't been blown up first), but these worlds will be ages apart from one another.
The Culture Series - read the Wiki, or don't, I don't blame you, I keep my fandom a secret because too many people can't understand it. Paradise, eternal hedonism, but by this point the human species will be unrecognizable. The most recognizable, under-evolved, of us, will be left under the control of hyper-intelligent AI.
And .... it just occurred to me that even if we do reach other planets, those new colonies risk blowing themselves up just like we risk blowing ourselves up now. So, I suppose we'll just have to spread out as much as we possible can.